On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:41:58 -0700, the infamous Gunner Asch
scrawled the following:
On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:32:02 -0500, Don Foreman
wrote:
On Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:07:15 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:
Then you obviously have no need for a weapon. Or a CCW.
I thought at some length (about half a mile) about your comment today
while out hiking my daily three on a lovely September day in MN. The
hills seemed a bit less arduous today with the nice breeze. I
sometimes temper my pace a bit up the steep hills but I didn't today.
Quicktime march all the way hooaahhh.
I concluded that you're probably right: I probably don't need a CCW
or to carry a weapon. I always carry a blade but that hardly counts
at my age. Your note logically follows from what I've written in
previous posts, and I think it's so. Gunner Asch, voice of moderate
reason? Holy moley, Ole!
This being so, carrying a pocket .380 now and then is obviously more
than sufficient if perhaps absurd for the likes of me. My petit
carry need not have the one-shot-drop potential of dropping a gorilla
like a sack of doorknobs to accomplish its mission of making spooky
old moi feel a bit safer on the trail.
I suspect you'll understand a bit about spooky. Some might call it
situational awareness. Tomato, tomahto. Being spooked by noticed
non-threats may mark us as odd in polite society but it doesn't get
us killed. We are still alive partly because we heeded our spooks,
our unknown senses, the short hairs on the back of our necks. There's
a difference between fear and paying attention. Managing fear is an
essential survival skill for those who go in harm's way willingly or
otherwise and the memory, learned behavior, tends to stick.
The life-preservation/defense device I'm actually more likely to need
is a defibrillator and I do pack one of those everywhere 24/7. Very
concealed in it's USP (under skin pocket). G 40 joules or 29.5
ft-lb per whack, about a seventh of the energy of a .380 round but
they tell me that it usually gits 'er done. It's a heart shot every
time, dead certain. Um, let's just say certain...
This logic and POV (not privately owned vehicle, GI, and why did they
think only privates owned vehicles anyway) is actually consistent
with my approach from the gitgo. I didn't think I needed a handgun
back in '06 when I bought my first one but I knew that if something
changed so I did need one it'd be far too late then to start shopping
and developing skills. It took me most of a year to select one (a
.40), purchase it, and develop what I regarded as a functional level
of proficiency with it. My primary armed defense interest was then
and still is defense against home invasion. I wanted to supplement
the somewhat unwieldy 12-gage that's been in the closet for decades
and retire the Louisville Slugger.
Note please that we're not nearly as advanced a civilization out here
in flyover country as y'all are in California. We just started
locking our doors at night a few years ago. In more rural MN it is
not uncommon to see a truck parked in town with keys in the ignition
and power tools loose in the bed though that's changing rapidly in
those counties being invaded by illegal immigrants. That isn't
widespread yet, but like aquatic Asian milfoil, purple loosestrife and
other noxious species it will inexorably spread until we find a way to
control it.
(We're still pretty rural here in most of OR, too. I just discovered
some puncturevine along the road at the front of my lot. The upwind
neighbor has thistles and lets them blow, so I'm now constantly
digging up new stickery plants.)
I thought and think that any civilian who owns a handgun should be
competently trained in the legal rights, responsibilities and rules of
engagement applicable in his jurisdiction. Vets need this as much as
anyone, probably more. I think it's foolish to do less because the
laws are what they are regardless of what one might think they should
be. The objective was not to check a box, it was to keep my tender ass
out of jail. I regard that as a priority. The fact that you are still
at large may indicate that you have a similar priority.
In MN the CCW courses are exactly this sort of training so I took the
course very shortly after my first handgun purchase. I had no desire
or intent to carry and didn't even intend to apply for a permit. But
once I'd passed the course and range qual I figured "why not". The
answer to that was "because it costs another hunnerd bux" but I went
ahead and did it anyway. If nothing else it simplifies transport of
handguns and ammo considerably.
(It simplifies the fear/guilt feelings regarding cops, right, Don?
I know it shows up that you have a CCW on a traffic cop's laptop, but
I wonder if they treat us differently because of it. I don't plan on
being pulled over and easing my curiosity any time soon.)
We now have a selection of handguns in various sizes and calibers, and
some proficiency with all of them. No safe queens; we shoot them all.
That isn't due to any sense of need but simply because we discovered
that we enjoy owning them and shooting them. We don't enjoy carrying
them and, as you observed, we don't need to as things stand right now.
If our threat/risk level assessment should change we can easily and
instantly adapt because we have the kit, the permits and the skills.
Exactly, it's insurance, plain and simple. I want to be able to defend
myself when I'm out shooting pictures in the wilds of SoOR, and that
includes from thugs, hillbillies, pot farmers, wild animals, or other
threats. Jackelopes and vicious rabbits of Caerbannog need not apply.
We'd have to use one of these for one of those:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgLj9lOwk
Fair enough. When you feel the Need to carry...carry something a bit
better than a .380...ok? Id hate to read the crime report and find out
you pumped a full magazine into the perp and he still cut out your
heart.
Don might have the last laugh there, as the 40 joules from Don's IED
zapped the heart burgurgular and stopped his heart.
--
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite
at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
--Ronald Reagan